iWork documents float into iCloud with update

OS X got a big update Wednesday morning in the form of Mountain Lion, including support for Documents in the Cloud, Apple’s iCloud service for wirelessly syncing your files between computers. Not to be left in the dust by the likes of TextEdit and Preview, however, the Mac versions of Apple’s three iWork apps also received updates to enable access to files stored in iCloud.

OS X got a big update Wednesday morning in the form of Mountain Lion, including support for Documents in the Cloud, Apples iCloud service for wirelessly syncing your files between computers. Not to be left in the dust by the likes of TextEdit and Preview, however, the Mac versions of Apples three iWork apps also received updates to enable access to files stored in iCloud.

Its hardly a surprise to see iWork Update 9.2 now: Apple previewed Documents in the Cloud support for iWork at the last months Worldwide Developers Conference; the company had also been showcasing a screenshot of Pages synced across all Apple devices on its OS X website. As the iWork apps arent bundled with OS X, however, they wouldnt receive Documents in the Cloud support as part of an operating system upgradehence, the separate update on Wednesday.

The patch brings support for Documents in the Cloud to Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. Unfortunately, iBooks Author, the unofficial fourth member of the iWork team, did not receive a Documents in the Cloud-centric update.

Documents in the Cloud, which lets apps access files stored in iCloud, works similarly to the iWork apps as it does with TextEdit, Preview, or any third-party iCloud-enabled app. When you open, say, Pages, youll be greeted with iClouds Document Library and any file you may have created or saved there.

The files themselves can be opened, organized by name or date, put into foldersiOS styleby dragging one file on top of another, or distributed via the Share menu. You can also create new files by clicking on the New Document button, or copy a file from your computeror a different Document Libraryby dragging it over to your library.

If you own Pages, Numbers, or Keynote, you can download the update for free from the Mac App Store, via Software Update, or a standalone installer on Apple's Downloads page; though you can install the update on Lion, youll need to be running Mountain Lion to take advantage of Documents in the Cloud and Dictation. New users can purchase each app in the iWork suite for $10.

In addition to the Mac versions of iWork, Apple also released updates to the mobile components of its productivity suite on Wednesday. The 1.6.1 versions of Keynote, Numbers, and Pages work with iCloud to make presentations, spreadsheets, and documents available between your iOS device and your Mac.